Templeton prize is bad news for religion, not science

The £1 million prize is meant to reconcile the two – but if you listen to the Templeton Foundation itself that’s impossible, says Michael Brooks

Ban urges stronger legal protection as UN marks day for detained and missing staff

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged all States to strengthen the legal protection afforded to United Nations staff and associated personnel by adopting the main treaty aimed at preventing attacks committed against them and punishing those responsible.

Today’s slavery practices must be eradicated, Secretary-General says

Slavery and slavery-like practices still continue in many parts of the world, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today, calling for renewed international commitment to ensure that all forms of slavery are finally eradicated.

Today’s slavery practices must be eradicated, Ban says

Slavery and slavery-like practices still continue in many parts of the world, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today, calling for renewed international commitment to ensure that all forms of slavery are finally eradicated.

ETI to invest £25m in carbon capture demonstration project

New Statesman
Published 24 March 2010

The UK’s Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has planned to invest £25m in an advanced CO2 capture technology demonstration project
It said that it is beginning the hunt for organizations or consortia to bid for the project.
The proposed project will see the development of capture technology to a stage where it has completed full scale demonstration by 2015 and ready for adoption into full scale commercial power applications by 2020.
ETI said that bidders will need to demonstrate and justify how their approach will enable their technology to reach a state of development that will allow future investors to start engineering the design of a power station using this next generation technology in 2015, with operation commencing in 2020.
David Clarke, chief executive of ETI, said: “Capturing the CO2 emissions from fossil-fueled power stations using the technologies currently available can increase the capital costs of a new power station by between 50 and 100% and significantly reduce power output or increase fuel consumption.
“This project would enable the technology to catch the ’second wave’ of CCS implementation in the 2020s following on from the first phase of plants expected to be built between 2015 and 2020 as part of the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s demonstration projects.”

Forests expert officially complains about ‘distorted’ Sunday Times article

Press Complaints Commission told that newspaper story gives impression that IPCC made false Amazon rainfall claim

David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 March 2010 14.28 GMT
A leading scientist has made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an “inaccurate, misleading and distorted” newspaper story about a supposed mistake made by the UN’s panel on global warming.
Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical forests at the University of Leeds, says the story, published by the Sunday Times in January, is wrong and should be corrected.
He says the story is misleading because it gives the impression that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made a false claim in its 2007 report that reduced rainfall could wipe out up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest. The Sunday Times story was widely followed up across the world, and, in the wake of the discovery of a high-profile blunder by the IPCC over the likely melting of Himalayan glaciers, helped fuel claims that the IPCC was flawed and its conclusions unreliable.
Lewis said: “There is currently a war of disinformation about climate change-related science, and my complaint can hopefully let journalists in the front line of this war know that there are potential repercussions if they publish misleading stories. The public deserve careful and accurate science reporting.”
The Sunday Times piece was originally headlined “UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim”, though this was later changed on the website version. It said the 40% destruction figure was based on an “unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise”.
The IPCC report attributed the claim to a report from campaign group WWF, which contained no reference to back the statement.
Lewis said he was contacted by the Sunday Times before the article was published and told them the IPCC’s statement was “poorly written and bizarrely referenced, but basically correct”. He added that “there is a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting that the Amazon is vulnerable to reductions in rainfall”. He also sent the newspaper several scientific papers that supported the claim, but were not cited by that section of the IPCC report.
Lewis says in his PCC complaint that he told The Sunday Times “the IPCC statement itself was scientifically defensible and correct, merely that [it used] the incorrect reference… To state otherwise is to materially mislead the reader.”
Lewis also complains that the Sunday Times used several quotes from him in the piece to support the assertion that the IPCC report had made a false claim. “Despite repeatedly stating to the Sunday Times that there is no problem with the sentence in the IPCC report, except the reference.”
Lewis said he made the PCC complaint, which runs to 31 pages, only after other attempts to raise his concerns failed. A letter to the Sunday Times, he says, was not acknowledged or printed, and a comment he posted on its website was deleted.
“As a professional scientist I have to clear this mess up, it’s important to protect my reputation in terms of providing accurate scientific information to the public.”
The Sunday Times said it that printed two letters in response to the article. It said it was “currently dealing with Simon Lewis’s complaint and hope to resolve the issue”.

Brazil oil growth won’t stunt biofuel: official

Peter Murphy
SAO PAULO

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - An expected rise in Brazil’s oil output will not threaten its fast-growing biofuels sector as more petroleum will be destined for export while most of its cane-derived ethanol is consumed at home, a government biofuel official said on Tuesday.
Brazil made a huge find of crude several miles below the sea floor in 2007 whose total reserves have been estimated at 50 billion to 80 billion barrels. Its oil production in Brazil is expected to nearly double by 2020.
At the same time, it is pioneering one of the world’s largest biofuels industries and 90 percent of its new car sales have flex-fuel technology, enabling them to run solely on its cane-derived ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of both.
Ethanol is usually the cheaper of the two and increasing availability of crude oil is unlikely to influence that, said Ricardo Dornelles, director at the Secretariat for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Renewable Fuels.
“There is not this worry because oil production will look to the export market,” Dornelles told reporters after making a presentation on the influence of rising Brazilian oil output on the Latin American country’s biofuel sector at the F.O. Licht analysts’ Sugar and Ethanol Brazil conference in Sao Paulo.
“Petrobras is making plans for refineries because Brazil wants to be an exporter (of refined products),” he said, referring to the state-controlled energy company.
Petrobras is one of the nation’s biggest ethanol distributors through its network of filling stations, but does not yet have its own ethanol production. It has ethanol projects that are still in development and plans to buy stakes in ethanol companies.
ETHANOIL
Most of Brazil’s ethanol is consumed on the domestic market and flex-fuel cars now comprise around 40 percent of its total vehicle fleet, the sugar and ethanol cane industry association Unica says.
Many motorists abandoned ethanol in recent months and filled up with gasoline after poor weather restricted cane harvesting and ethanol production but are switching back after a sharp drop in the biofuel’s price in the last few weeks.
Brazil, whose environmental credentials have suffered over deforestation in the Amazon, is proud of its status as a pioneer in biofuels and hopes to develop the still relatively small international market for its cane ethanol.
To do this, it says other countries need to begin producing the biofuel to reassure consumer nations about the security of supplies which heavily influenced by the weather.
In a separate presentation, Jose Luiz Oliverio, the vice-head of Technology and Development at Dedini, a Brazilian firm producing machinery to equip sugar and ethanol mills, said total energy yield from Brazil’s ethanol would be more than from oil in 2010 at the equivalent of 2,310 barrels of oil per day. He expected that to climb to 3 million barrels a day by 2015.
“Even with subsalt (oil production), I doubt (oil) will get to that level,” he said.
With a vast area of uncultivated land with potential for farming use, Brazil is likely to become an increasingly important source of both food and biofuels as well as oil and gas from the offshore fields near the southeast coast.
“The discovery of subsalt won’t reduce the importance that the government attributes to the development of the biofuel sector,” Dornelles said.
(Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Budget 2010: Cider makers say 10% rise in duty is hard to swallow

Producers warn of lost investment in rural economy and threat to England’s apple orchards

Steven Morris
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 March 2010 19.58 GMT
West Country “real” cider drinkers tend to be a mellow, inclusive kind of crowd but Alistair Darling would have experienced a decidedly frosty welcome had he ventured out into the pubs of Bristol last night.
“This tax is a kick in the teeth, said Jan Gale, manager at the Clifton Tap, which is renowned for its strong ciders. “The new tax is aimed at binge drinkers but it is the regular, sensible drinkers who are going to be affected most.
“I’d love to get that Alistair Darling across the table from me here,” said Sid Davies, a committed “real” cider drinker. “We are going to suffer because the government wants to be seen to be tackling binge drinking. I can afford to pay a few extra pence but it’s just not fair.”
Across the city at the Bristol Cider House, Danika and Lucy were enjoying a pint of Kingston Black Dry (7.5%: £2.50 a pint) and a hot mulled cider respectively. “I suppose it’s okay if the money is going to be used to pay for hospitals and schools,” said Lucy. “But can we know it’s going to be used properly? We can’t.”
It would be wrong to suggest there was a sense of panic in the West Country - but cider fans were certainly making plans. Students at Plymouth University were organising a grand Saturday night cider party. Near Glastonbury, Naish’s Cider were inundated with people wanting to buy in bulk ahead of the tax hike.
Cider makers today claimed the government was punishing success and warned that the sharp increase in duty on the drink could cause huge damage to the rural economy as well as the industry.
The industry has been booming since Gordon Brown, as chancellor, cut the duty by 2% in 2002. It was frozen for four subsequent budgets. Millions of pounds were ploughed into creating new products around the drink and encouraging it to be seen as fashionable. But today as expected, Darling announced an end to the good times. “There is a long-standing anomaly which has meant cider has been under-taxed in comparison to other alcoholic drinks. I intend to correct this. So duty on cider will increase by 10% above inflation from midnight on Sunday.”
Henry Chevallier, chair of the UK’s National Association of Cider Makers, said a pint could cost up to 10p more when the duty increases by 10% above inflation. Chevallier said today: “This dramatic increase could well reverse the growth we have generated in recent years. The chancellor has a big budget deficit to address and whilst it might appear obvious to increase the tax on alcohol, the reality is likely to mean reduced demand and therefore less cash in the Treasury coffers.
“Cider makers have invested millions in new orchard. Orchards take years to yield a return and the loss to the rural economy and the environment will be enormous if sales decline sufficiently and demand for English apples falls.”
Bulmers, which makes 65% of the 5m hectolitres of cider sold annually in the UK, said it was “hugely disappointed”. Harry Turner, cider communications manager for Bulmers, said: “We are victims of our own success. We have planted new orchards, invested in new brands and the chancellor seems to be punishing us.”
Much smaller producers were also feeling bruised. Tom Oliver, of Oliver’s Cider and Perry, an artisan cidermaker at Ocle Pychard, Herefordshire, was worried by the chancellor’s assertion that, from September, changes would be made in the definition of cider to ensure specific strong ciders were taxed “more appropriately”.
Artisan cider makers tend to make a stronger drink; Oliver’s version can be up to 8%, depending on the weather.
“The larger companies will be able to adjust their recipes to make sure they are not caught by larger taxes. That is anathema to us. We like nature to take its course,” said Oliver.
Andrew Quinlan, of Somerset cider producers The Orchard Pig, said it seemed unfair that craft producers might suffer because the government wanted to take a stand against binge drinkers. “We all know there aren’t problem drinks, there are problem drinkers.”
The tax hike even caused The Wurzels, the band famed for the hit I am a Cider Drinker, to state: “We are all very upset that scrumpy cider, being one of the few pleasures that we cherish down here on the farm … is being hit by such a tax rise. We all realise that we have to tighten the string on our trousers but we feel we are being unfairly penalised.”

What does the Budget mean for science?

Shortly after Alistair Darling sat down after delivering his Budget speech today, Lord Drayson, the Science and Innovation Minister, took to Twitter with his response. His verdict:
“A great budget for science and science based business.”
It might well be. But it’s very difficult to reach that conclusion from Mr Darling’s speech and the Treasury’s published documents. It’s true that there are a few good things there for science, and given the widespread nervousness in the research community that cuts are on the way, the absence of anything bad is in itself a cause for celebration. Science, though, could hardly be called a centrepiece.
I counted four mentions of the word “science” in the Chancellor’s statement, only one of which referred to a new initiative. There were another six in the Budget Report, including two in headings and one in the glossary. That’s a little hard to reconcile with Lord Drayson’s characteristic optimism.

That’s not to say there weren’t some cherries. There is £270 million of new money for universities, to fund an extra 20,000 places in science, technology, engineering and maths. Good news for sure. Also welcome was the £35 million for the Universities Capital Fund, to support commercialisation of their activities, and £30 million for the new Web Science Institute.
What wasn’t addressed at all, however, was the future of the science budget. There was no indication of how research funding will fare in the next Comprehensive Spending Review — and it is that event, not this Budget, which will have the greatest impact on the field. If the next Chancellor cuts or freezes the science budget, the little extra that has been invested today will count for little. And we aren’t any the wiser about what is likely to transpire.
In their responses to the Budget, science groups have largely taken the same view. Sir Peter Williams, Vice-President and Treasurer of the Royal Society, said:
“With more and more of our competitor nations announcing increased funding for science – some of them significantly - it’s going to be vital that the UK steps up to the plate and invests heavily in a sector that is one of our few genuine areas of economic advantage. Science has to be central to any long-term strategy for economic growth.
“Today’s Budget shows some indication that Government appreciates the role science can play in re-building our economy. The funds earmarked for modernisation in universities and commercialisation of research are small but positive initiatives. However, we’ll see just how serious they are when money is allocated in the next Comprehensive Spending Review.”
The Campaign for Science and Engineering’s response is here. Highlights include:
“The government’s additional support for educating the next generation of science and engineering graduates is needed. Their skills are in demand by employers and will be vital for re-balancing the economy.
“Unfortunately, there was no clarification about how the government would reconcile the planned £600 million cuts to higher education, science and research budgets, with Lord Mandelson’s commitment to protect science spending. If the government is going to see through its commitment under the Science and Innovation Investment Framework, then the Science Budget for 2011 – 2014 should be no less than the Budget’s forecast for economic growth of at least 3%.”
Nature’s The Great Beyond blog has a nice roundup by Richard van Noorden, and I also recommend Roger Highfield’s take in New Scientist’s The S Word blog.

Embrace the endless city

The distaste for gigantic conurbations is outdated: they can be greener and freer than the countryside
Owen Hatherley
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 March 2010 22.00 GMT

For the first time in history there are more people living in cities than outside them. This is just one of the striking statements in the United Nations’ State of the World’s Cities report, which pinpoints the development of “mega-regions” – gigantic conurbations such as the Pearl River Delta in China, which has a population of about 120 million. This report concentrates on something unprecedented but, in the horrified reactions it has caused, it has tapped into something very old.
We should not be so smug as to condemn the endless cities, not least because they started in Britain. The evils of overpopulation and pollution that invariably attend discussion of China’s hyper-industrialisation were worried over in an equally hypocritical fashion 150 years ago, when Britain became the first nation to have more of its population in cities than in the countryside.
Before English urbanisation exploded in the 19th century, cities were often strictly bounded by walls. There had been the odd megalopolis – Rome, Istanbul, Baghdad – but nothing like London, which within 200 years absorbed not merely neighbouring Westminster but towns from Highgate to Croydon.
In the north of England the situation was, if anything, more pronounced – in the Cottonopolis of industrial Lancashire towns which seemed to have sprung up overnight. Just as today, this led to fears of the destruction of the countryside and the creation of a huge, uncontrollable urban proletariat which, unlike the peasantry that preceded it, could not be relied on to bow before God and King, rejecting what Marx and Engels called “rural idiocy”. The very first of the “endless cities” to emerge were Greater London, Greater Manchester, the Black Country, the West Riding, Tyneside, and in Scotland, Glasgow.
In a sense, Britain is as much a megacity region as the Pearl River Delta – some demographers refer to a continuous megalopolis stretching from London to Edinburgh, with a population of 53 million. The reason why it doesn’t feel like one giant city is because of 19th- and 20th-century reforms by those who wanted to tame not only the new supercities but also the unrestrained capitalism that produced them. Sometimes this was a matter of measures to make urban life bearable, as a defence against urban insurrection – sewers, public parks, and new public transport networks – but pressures to stop the growth of cities often came from the left.
What is disturbing in the UN report – something made clear in Mike Davis’s book Planet of Slums – is that some of these megacities have never been made bearable. In the 19th century the rationalist dream of the ordered city that you can still see in, say, Newcastle’s Grainger Town, would be rudely interrupted by the unplanned, smoke-belching, unsanitary sprawl from which it made its money; Davis points out that the new megalopolis might well be on the model of Kinshasa, which lacks the most basic urban infrastructure for its 10 million inhabitants, rather than the Blade Runner image of southern China.
Although supercities have always horrified environmentalists, they shouldn’t. With their relatively short distances easily served by public transport, they are in fact greener than the countryside; a recent academic report estimated that cities produce less than two-fifths of greenhouse gas emissions. What is worrying about the “endless city” is that it may lack the public spaces and networks that make urban life superior. The cities of hyper-capitalism, with their gated communities, “urban villages”, pseudo country villas and private transport, are malevolent because they try to simulate the countryside. The megalopolis need not be the cause for handwringing – but only if city dwellers claim as their own the freedoms of city life.